Bestseller Karp’s fifth mystery featuring an endearing pair of unconventional LAPD detectives (after 2010’s Cut, Paste, Kill), though not up to the level of his best work, still cleverly incorporates humor into a serious story line. Det. Mike Lomax, of the Hollywood Division’s homicide unit, is about to get a prostate exam when he hears gunshots from a nearby room, where he soon discovers the bloody corpse of Kristian Kraus, the “most beloved fertility doctor in all of Los Angeles.” Kraus’s killer, Calvin Bernstein, defies Mike’s pleas and takes his own life before the horrified cop’s eyes. There’s no apparent connection between the murderer and his victim, though Mike and his late wife, Joanie, were once patients of Kraus before Joanie died of cancer. The case takes another twist after Mike and his acerbic partner, Terry Biggs, who aspires to be a stand-up comic after retirement, are alerted to a vehicular death labeled accidental that the reader already knows from a prologue was murder. The charm of Karp’s leads more than warrants a sequel. Agent: Mel Berger, WME. (BookLife)